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Golden Ticket of the week.
Jan. 16th, 2008 01:37 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
valiskeogh.livejournal.comi might have to have this be a weekly thing.
the golden ticket for this week (and yes, it's only tuesday) is this one:
The interacters on 4 east and 4 west need to be defragged, per Plant Ops.
ooooookay then. i realize that this may seem to be a reasonable work order from someone who isn't familiar with the setup. my personal reaction was to double over in side splitting laughter, hit print, and search around for a suitable frame for the work order. lemme esplain.
1. Plant Ops : The group of guys who runs around replacing countertops, repairing leaks, servicing air conditioners, and generally keeps the building from falling apart. they're great guys and do a great job, but computer literate they are NOT.
2. i've gone over this with the helpdesk time and time and time again:
a.---------- do not listen to the users when they come right out and say what they want us to do to fix a computer. they dont KNOW how to fix the computer. they usually dont even know that the COMPUTER is the box with the fans, and not the thing with all the words and letters and moving pictures. hence, the reason for having the computer guys (i.e. ME).
b.---------- do NOT simply put down what you (or anyone else, and ESPECIALLY the user) thinks is the FIX for the problem and then say nothing about what the actual problem IS. 100% of the time you are WRONG which wastes my time trying to figure out what the problem is so that i can determine the CORRECT fix. if the computer is SLOW say "computer is slow. user suggests defragging. of course you and i both know that the user doesn't know a "defrag" from a "fragmentation grenade".
3. the "interactors" are computers that run the client side of a program dedicated to giving out work orders and information to various groups. they run one itty bitty program that connects back to the server. they only have mice. the program isn't complicated enough to need a keyboard. As such, the interactors dont need to be much of a computer and most of the time that's just what they are. not much of a computer.
4. three clicks would have told the helpdesk that the interactors in question are, quite frankly, pieces of shit. most of them would be nearing the legal age of consent in alabama. one is a 486/66 running windows 95, the other is running windows 98 (not sure of the proc, but most likely not much more than the other one) and neither have more than 32 meg of ram.
5. defrag on win95/win98 really can't be done unless you shut every other single program down. if you dont, the damn thing keeps stopping and starting whenever the disk is accessed by ANYTHING, including a slight breeze, causing the process to take roughly "a lifetime". there are several win95 computers that have been running defrag for roughly 8 years and "will be done any day now".
6. another two clicks would have revealed that both of these machines are using roughly 5% and 3.5% of the available hard drive space (the program and OS takes up 1 gig out of the 20 and 40 gig drives in these boxes). unless that data is broken up into 1 byte per sector pieces and evenly distributed in a random fashion across the hard drive, i seriously doubt "defragging" will give quite the performance boost Plant Ops is hoping for.
my solution was to close the ticket after checking (from my desk... not getting up for this one) that both boxes were "functional" and calling our purchasing person to give her the heads up that a couple new boxes will probably have to be ordered soon.
after framing the work order.
Valis
the golden ticket for this week (and yes, it's only tuesday) is this one:
The interacters on 4 east and 4 west need to be defragged, per Plant Ops.
ooooookay then. i realize that this may seem to be a reasonable work order from someone who isn't familiar with the setup. my personal reaction was to double over in side splitting laughter, hit print, and search around for a suitable frame for the work order. lemme esplain.
1. Plant Ops : The group of guys who runs around replacing countertops, repairing leaks, servicing air conditioners, and generally keeps the building from falling apart. they're great guys and do a great job, but computer literate they are NOT.
2. i've gone over this with the helpdesk time and time and time again:
a.---------- do not listen to the users when they come right out and say what they want us to do to fix a computer. they dont KNOW how to fix the computer. they usually dont even know that the COMPUTER is the box with the fans, and not the thing with all the words and letters and moving pictures. hence, the reason for having the computer guys (i.e. ME).
b.---------- do NOT simply put down what you (or anyone else, and ESPECIALLY the user) thinks is the FIX for the problem and then say nothing about what the actual problem IS. 100% of the time you are WRONG which wastes my time trying to figure out what the problem is so that i can determine the CORRECT fix. if the computer is SLOW say "computer is slow. user suggests defragging. of course you and i both know that the user doesn't know a "defrag" from a "fragmentation grenade".
3. the "interactors" are computers that run the client side of a program dedicated to giving out work orders and information to various groups. they run one itty bitty program that connects back to the server. they only have mice. the program isn't complicated enough to need a keyboard. As such, the interactors dont need to be much of a computer and most of the time that's just what they are. not much of a computer.
4. three clicks would have told the helpdesk that the interactors in question are, quite frankly, pieces of shit. most of them would be nearing the legal age of consent in alabama. one is a 486/66 running windows 95, the other is running windows 98 (not sure of the proc, but most likely not much more than the other one) and neither have more than 32 meg of ram.
5. defrag on win95/win98 really can't be done unless you shut every other single program down. if you dont, the damn thing keeps stopping and starting whenever the disk is accessed by ANYTHING, including a slight breeze, causing the process to take roughly "a lifetime". there are several win95 computers that have been running defrag for roughly 8 years and "will be done any day now".
6. another two clicks would have revealed that both of these machines are using roughly 5% and 3.5% of the available hard drive space (the program and OS takes up 1 gig out of the 20 and 40 gig drives in these boxes). unless that data is broken up into 1 byte per sector pieces and evenly distributed in a random fashion across the hard drive, i seriously doubt "defragging" will give quite the performance boost Plant Ops is hoping for.
my solution was to close the ticket after checking (from my desk... not getting up for this one) that both boxes were "functional" and calling our purchasing person to give her the heads up that a couple new boxes will probably have to be ordered soon.
after framing the work order.
Valis
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